🐮 Easter 5

Readings: Acts 11:1-18; Psalm 148; Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35. 

Transcript

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Acts chapter 11 verses one through 18. Now, the apostles and the brothers and sisters who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him saying, why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them? Then Peter began to explain it to them step by step, saying, I was in the city of Choppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There's something like a large sheet coming down from heaven being lowered by its four corners, and it came closer to me. I said, I looked at it closely. I saw four footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the ear. I also heard a voice saying to me, get up, Peter. Kill and eat. But I replied, by no means Lord, for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth. But a second time, the voice answered from heaven, what God has made clean. You must not call profane. This happened three times. Then everything was pulled up again to heaven. At that very moment, three men sent me from Cesarea, arrived at the house where we were. The Spirit told me to go to them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me and we entered the man's house. He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, send to Chopin. Bring Simon, who was called Peter. He'll give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved. And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had us had upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Joshua Christ, who is I that I could hinder God? When they heard this, they were silenced and they praised God saying Then God has given even to the Gentiles, the repentance that leads to life. Psalm 148. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord from the heavens. Praise her in the heights. Praise her. All our angels. Praise her. All our host. Praise them. Sun and moon. Praise them all. You shining stars. Praise them. You highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord for she commanded and they were created. She established them forever and ever. She fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed. Praise the Lord from the earth. Monsters in all deeps, fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind, fulfilling her command, mountains in all hills, fruit, trees in all cedars, wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds, kings of the earth and all peoples princes and all rulers of the earth. Young men and women alike, old and young together let them praise the name of the Lord for his name alone is exalted. Her glory is above heaven and earth. She has raised up a horn for his people, praised for all her faithful for the people of Israel who are close to her. Praise the Lord. Revelation chapter 21 verses one through six. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven, and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, see, the home of God is among mortals. She will dwell with them as their God. They will be his peoples, and God themself will be with them and be their God. They will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more mourning and crying, and pain will be no more for the first things that passed away. And the one who was seated on the throne said, see, I am making all things new. Also he said, write this for these words are trustworthy and true. Then she said to me, it's done. I'm the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end to the thirsty. I'll give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. The Gospel of John chapter 13 verses 31 to 35. When he had gone out, Joshua said, now the son of man has been glorified and God has been glorified in him. When he had gone out, Joshua said, now the child of humanity has been glorified and God has been glorified in us. If God has been glorified in us, God will also glorify j Joshua in himself and will glorify Joshua as well. Little children. I'm with you. Only a little longer you'll look for me, and as I said to the Jews, so now I say to you where I'm going, you cannot come. I give you a new commandment that you love one another, just as I have loved you. You also should love one another. By this. Everyone will know that you are my students. If you have love for one another. Good morning and welcome to the fifth Sunday after, or of Easter Tide or after Easter. This is Brother Logan Isaac, broadcasting from Albany, Oregon. Our readings today come from Acts 11, Psalm 1 48, revelation 21, and John 13. You'll notice that I was playing with the gendered pronouns for God in Psalm and then in John. And John is the Johannine literature, which is to say the Gospel of John, the letters of John, the revelation of John are very advanced, like whoever or whatever community is, has composed them, has some experience in philosophy. And I think theology is just moral philosophy. But. In verse 32, you can tell he's going for a triune structure of God, even though that doesn't seem to be something that the Christ seemed to be interested in. In the other gospels. If God has been glorified in Christ, God will also glorify Christ and in God's self and will glorify Christ at once. Like it's, the, anyway, it's clearly quite advanced and I bring that up because there's, when I first read it. It, I wondered if it was after the resurrection and it's not. It's actually before he even goes up to gha. And so when he says where I'm going, you cannot come. He's saying, you're not going to be martyred. You're not going to be crucified by Rome. You're not gonna do it. And then later Peter's, that's when Peter's whoa, wait, no, I would totally do that. And Jesus is no, you won't. The cock is gonna cross three times if you need some proof. And it makes me think of I, our own culture. We have this thing called virtue signaling where you know the right thing, but you're not really willing to commit it. You just want other people to you just wanna show other people how virtuous you are by like. Making gestures toward virtue. Virtue signaling is just showing other people what a good person you are. And that is, that's good. You should desire to be good. You should desire to be seen in a public and be judged based upon your works rather than your thoughts. But here's the problem. And it gets into martyrdom. It gets into witnessing. Peter is like the first. The first martyr if memory serves IIS of Leone. And he had the opportunity to flee, which a lot of people did in a lot of circumstances, not just early Christianity. Socrates, when he was given the poison by the state, because he had been charged with impiety, a lot of people in the same circumstance just fled the city and they built a life elsewhere. Socrates said, no I'm gonna, I'm actually gonna do this thing. It's a pagan version of a scapegoat ritual. And RNAs of Leone, when he is, slowly making his way to Rome, he knows he is gonna be executed or he has a really good sense that he will be he says, don't be like those others who rush to martyrdom only to shy away from it when it rears its ugly head. I can't remember the name of the guy but he named somebody. And this person apparently was like, yeah I'm a cool kid Christian. Yeah, you can even kill me. And then when, when his head is on the chomping block, he's wait. I was just kidding. I'd rather live di in dishonesty than to die in truth. And virtue signaling, I bring that up because I think we're at a point in our. Society in our nation or civilization where there's a lot of fake martyrdom where we say we wanna do the right thing, but we don't do it. It makes me think of this song by Macklemore. I'm White and so Macklemore just finds its way to me more easily. But anyway. And he's talking about white privilege. In fact, that may be the na name of the song. I can't remember, but he said they go to the march, but that's all they do. You're not gonna speak up, you're just gonna do the cool kid thing. And when shit starts hitting the fan, you're just gonna turn and run. Not that running is bad, not that running is bad. Anybody who's had to go through an elementary school shooter drill is like, that's the first thing you do. It's not bad, but don't tell me you're gonna do anything but run. Be honest, right? Don't tell me you're going to, be all about social justice, but then only go to the march and then go home and continue to consume products that use slave labor and, stuff like that. Like just say that you're flawed. Say that you're not perfect. Stop trying to say that you're good, being so overt in showing other people what you think you are. And instead be that thing. And there's this really interesting lyric that I thought I heard from my mom, but I know it was in, is in a Me Without You Lyric. I don't remember the song. But the line is those who talk don't know, and those who know, don't talk. And that resonates with me as someone in the military, like quiet professionals are not special forces anymore. They're the rank and file grunts who just are there to get the work done. When Special Forces and Delta and Navy Seals, when they're out there making book deals and signing autographs like something's wrong they talk because. They're afraid of knowing. They're afraid of not being seen for their actions. It makes me think of the guy that shot Osama Bin Laden, like I don't know his name, but he's convinced it was him. And I haven't heard any pushback, but like, why would you, there's only a very particular corrupt society in which that is the thing that you virtue signal about, that I've killed a man that my nation told me to. There's something missing. We're in this upside down, from Stranger Things like, if you want to be good, do good and don't wait for people to see it because God sees it. That's all that should matter. And that's why I think I. When Jesus, who, let's assume he is a historical figure and John has one perspective on Jesus and there's others. Mark, Matthew, Luke, right? And in John's from where John is standing and he claims to be one of the disciples of Christ. He knows'cause he is writing after the events have happened, he knows Jesus is gonna die and he knows no one's gonna die at his side. And he knows that he's gonna be there to console Joshua's mother. Nobody else. Peter wasn't there, mark. No, mark came later, like there's nobody there but his own mother and his closest friend John in tradition holds that John died of old age, essentially on Pat Moss because he was the only one, not martyred. He was the only one who was not endowed with the blessing and curse of bearing witness to the truth with one's own life. The only thing that John had was his word. I. And that's how he begins his gospel. In the beginning, God was pure word, pure truth, pure logic. And now I'm giving you this logic and if there's one thing I'm gonna tell you before I die, it's love one another. Don't worry about anything else. Love one another, and everything else will work out. You will be good if you learn how to love. People will see that you are good if you learn how to love. But if anything else is front and center, you're going to find yourself misled. Your center of gravity is off. If you want to be seen as good, it's very simple. Just do good. Don't call attention to yourself. Don't do it so that others see, just do it because it's the right thing.